Khmer Rouge & The Killing Fields

We arrived back in Phnom Penh which is a mentally busy city. It's supposed to be the 'Pearl of Asia' with bustling street markets and some of the best nightlife in Cambodia. We arrived and went for a meal at a restaurant called Friends, this is run by a Non Government Organisation that travels around the city looking for street kids and giving them life skills to try and integrate them back into society. The restaurant was run completely by street kids that had been 'rescued' and trained as chef's, waiting staff, bar staff etc. Due to the nature of the organisation it was slightly more expensive than a traditional restaurant however the food was amazing, well worth paying the little extra for good food and a good cause. After the meal we set out to find some of the amazing nightlife however only managed to find lots of bars with no one in them!! We headed to Street 104 which is supposed to be the party area to be met with a number of seedy looking places. One looked less seedy so we entered and grabbed a beer, within minutes the one other man in the bar on his own started jumping on the spot, whooping and going a bit nuts....'finish up lets move on!' In search of another decent bar we walked around and gave up before heading back to the hotel.

The next morning we visited a couple of places to learn more about the Khmer Rouge and the genocide committed by Pol Pot. After the chat with Sareth on the homestay it was something we all wanted to learn more about. First we went to S-21, this used to be a school for Cambodian Children however in 1975 Pol Pot changed it to a prison designed for detention, interrogation, torture and ultimately the killing of thousands of innocent Cambodians. Not one person who was taken to S-21 managed to get out alive!





The school was transformed into S-21 within a few days of Pol Pots regime taking power, he forced the whole population of the city into the countryside by propaganda and lies before putting up the iron and electric barbed wire fences around the schools and changing the classrooms into prison cells, 0.8m x 2m. Any body the soldiers brought back from the fields to S-21 was brutally tortured and murdered including women and children.





All prisoners were chained in the cells which had no doors, the prisoners could see there mums, dads, partners etc however if they spoke they would be killed, normally with a spade or bamboo stick after hours of torture. Even if the prisoners were asleep and wanted to turn over they had to call a guard to ask for permission. There were many torture devices around the place and stories told which are probably not what you want to read on a holiday blog so I won't go into it.

The worst and most suprising thing is that the soldiers of the regime were mainly children between 15-20 who had been brain washed into what they were doing. Pol Pot was that worried the word may get out about his acts and he was worried about an uprising he even got his own soldiers to kill each other once they had done it for a certain amount of time. In 1978 the prison held 5,765 prisoners all of which were detained for between 2-4 months of torture before being taken to the killing fields for execution. This was one of hundreds of similar prisons around Cambodia.

We arrived at the killing fields a short time later and started to have a look around. A large temple has been erected in memory which has shelf upon shelf of bones and skulls excavated from the mass graves. There are around 140 mass graves within the killing fields however only 80 have been excavated, the people of Cambodia have said it is enough, they want to forget it and move on. The graves were scattered everywhere and bits of bone still dot the walkways.










Some of the graves had been for women who had first been raped, others for soldiers who had all been decapitated with spades or razor sharp palm leaves, others for babies who had been smashed against the 'killing tree'. Again there were many more stories of torture and killings worse than this but I thought I'd put a little post on as it was and still is very difficult for Cambodia. In total over 3 million people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime in a country whose population wasn't very big to start with.

A few people from the Khmer Rouge regime are still in power with the new government as the new government believe if they kicked them all out another war would start and the country would descend into war, famine and utter chaos again. They have agreed to work with them and the trial of 5 of the major Khmer Rouge leaders who instigated the genocide is still going on today. To keep the peace only 5 of the top dogs are going to be trialled and punished!!!!

Anyway......off to Vietnam tomorrow in search of the elusive island of Phu Quoc. Hopefully the next post will be a little more cheery!!!!